A/N: So while I was in sick sleep deprivation land, I realized I haven't shown Karin and Tōshirō actually being confidants like Tōshirō's narration has implied. (It doesn't help that they speak fluent sarcasm with each other.) And then I realized I've had this little scene in my head for a long time and never written it down. I've just known it happened. Boop.

CHAPTER TWO

Friendship Goals

A scene from early in Timeline X+N+1, between Homura leaving Karakura and returning to visit the next weekend.

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Karin tried to focus on the math on the board. Really, she did. Math was her thing. But her mind kept derailing into the mess Homura Akemi had so casually revealed to them all and that was really damn distracting. Yuzu seemed to find school stabilizing or comforting, but Karin itched to get out and do something. Goat Face told her a dozen times a day that he'd work with them in Urahara's basement to see what they could do, train them to make up for how they hadn't been able to practice outside of labyrinths, and do tests for the resident mad scientist, but they had to wait for Urahara to finish going back over everything his other self sent back in more detail and sort it out neatly because Futurahara hadn't had time to do much more than throw a shitload of files together and cram them in Homura's time capsule. And he had to document what had happened after the time capsule was buried based on Homura's word. And whatever. Karin thought Urahara at least had his shit together enough to do that pretty quickly since he had absorbed the stuff fast enough that first afternoon, but noooooo. He was taking forever.

Okay, so two days.

Two days felt like forever in her new world.

Karin irritably jerked forward to prop her chin up in her hand on her desk and tapped her pencil in time with her jumping leg. A classmate turned to give her a dirty look so Karin bared her teeth and gave him a death glare until he quailed and looked away. It was going to be a long day.

A lifetime later, Karin crammed her stuff into her bag and rushed out the door, out the building, out the everything, out out out she needed out. She kinda felt like she even wanted out of her body, that it was holding her back from rising and screaming and fighting, confining her righteous fury. Which was a good thing, objectively, but... yeah. Every molecule of her shrieked to take action and waiting was not action and ughhhhhhhhh.

She hurried home at Yuzu's side. Neither spoke, but they walked so close together that their arms continually brushed. It was reassuring. They'd been doing it since Homura left, kept checking on each other. No one would tell them too many details of what had happened beyond the breaking of Yuzu's Soul Gem, just broad strokes, so they were constantly guessing and trying to prevent anything. It was slowly twisting them into knots, edging them toward paranoia.

They got home, dumped their stuff in the foyer, and invaded the clinic together without having to speak a word. Goat Face glanced at them while seeing off a patient and turned back to give the patient some papers. Karin and Yuzu traded neutral looks. Every time their father saw them after they had been out of sight for more than an hour, his face would momentarily look... grieved and relieved at once, Karin supposed. A touch of fear. They were getting those looks from everyone in the know.

Which didn't entirely include them, goddammit.

When the door closed behind the patient, Goat Face immediately said, "He's still busy, but should be ready for us tomorrow."

Karin huffed and crossed her arms. "The hell's he still doing?"

Goat Face approached them and gave them each a gentle hug. Karin allowed it. The man sighed and explained, "Tōshirō's over there right now. Coordinating some things with Urahara and Yamamoto. It'd be faster if they weren't using Tōshirō as a courier to avoid interception of communications."

"Uuughhhhhhhh, why is the other mad scientist a bigger creep than Uraharaaaaa?" Karin groaned. "How is that even physically posssss-i-blllllle?"

"He learned from the best," Goat Face said with a smirk.

"Meaning Urahara?" Karin asked flatly.

"Yes."

"Ass."

They stood awkwardly for a long minute, none of them sure how to behave. All three of them felt guilty over the magical girl clusterfuck, none of them wanted to worry the others, so all of them worried. All of them felt like they had failed the others somehow. It was ridiculous. They were stuck.

"Do you want some help in the clinic, Daddy?" Yuzu eventually asked.

"I'd love that," Goat Face answered too quickly. "Karin, would you like to-?"

"No," she interrupted. Karin shifted restlessly. "I... gotta get out. Burn off some... everything."

Goat Face looked sad but smiled. "Soccer?"

"Yep."

"Be home for dinner," Yuzu ordered.

"A'ight," Karin chirped with a salute before sauntering back into the house.

Her movements sped up as she changed and got everything together. She practically leaped out the front door and was sprinting for the park before she really knew what she was doing, soccer ball bouncing against her back in its net with every stride. Karin was past the park and halfway to the hillside where she'd watch the sunset with Tōshirō sometimes when she came back to herself. She slowed and breathed deeply, centered herself, and fumbled her phone out of her pocket. She dropped the ball and tapped the screen with hands that totally weren't trembling.

- If you don't come hang with me before you go back I'll hunt your ass down

(I need you.)

Karin stared at the screen intensely as she waited for Tōshirō to reply- he always did so quickly if he was in her world- and looked at it so hard that she saw pixels instead of words by the time a reply popped up.

- Sure you will.

(How serious?)

Ass. - Don't doubt me, jerk

(Serious as fuck, man.)

- You'll hunt me down in Soul Society. Right.

(I'm officially worried.)

- I'm both creative and stubborn

(Not exaggerating. Need you.)

- Accurate.

He'd find her ASAP.

Karin wandered back to the park and distracted herself with the ball for years until she finally sensed Tōshirō's chilly reiatsu approaching. She turned to him in relief as he cleared the trees. "Hey, Tōsh-"

His face did the same thing Goat Face's kept doing. She hated it and struck instinctively, launching the soccer ball at his face with a magically-enhanced kick.

Of course, he immediately jumped up and stopped it with a chest bump and flare of his own reiatsu to dampen the blow. "The hell was THAT for?!" Tōshirō roared.

"I'm gonna beat the face off the next person who looks at me like that!" Karin screamed. Welp, so much for starting calm.

His face did the thing again, but worse. More pain. "Karin-"

"Don't make that fucking face!"

Tōshirō sighed tiredly and ran a hand through his hair. "Sorry."

"No, I'm sorry," Karin mumbled, looking at her feet. "I'm just- yeah. Sorry."

"I understand," her friend said quietly.

She was sure he did, considering the things he had gone through himself. Especially the war stuff. He wouldn't say so if he didn't. That was just how he was- he didn't do empty platitudes.

Tōshirō stood silently and watched her for hours/minutes, thoughtful. Karin balled up her hands into fists and dipped her chin to look up at him through her bangs. Her friend breathed out slowly and moved to scoop the soccer ball into the air with a little kick and grabbed it out of the air. "Soccer first or straight to the hill?"

Karin forced her muscles to relax and scrubbed her hands on her face. Hated to admit it, but, "The hill."

"All right."

They meandered their way through the neighborhood and up the hill in silence. Tōshirō bought them both sodas from a vending machine. They perched on the guardrail and looked out at the wide sky over the city below. Not quite time to be watching sunset. Clouds would have to do for now. They'd probably be there awhile, anyway.

She wasn't in the mood to be delicate. "You all know something else about me 'n Yuzu from last time but won't say anything and suck at hiding it and it's driving me nuts."

He was in the mood to be delicate. "It's to spare you... trouble." At least she could count on him to not lie to her face to deny the obvious.

"What kind of trouble?"

"...I don't know. Nightmares? Existential horror? Anxiety? Embarrassment?"

Embarrassment was an unexpected addition. "That's stupid."

Tōshirō looked at her sideways and raised a brow. "Stupid to be concerned?"

"No, dumbass," she replied hotly. "Stupid to think not telling is going to spare me that." More subdued, she admitted, "Not knowing and guessing is worse than knowing. I have an imagination, Tōsh. I can't help using it. Without an outline, it's come up with a hundred goddamn explanations for your faces. It's... I wouldn't go as far as to call it torture, but it's driving me up a wall. I hate not knowing something about myself."

He stared at her for a long time, grim and considering. She stared right back at him.

"What do you want to know?" Tōshirō asked carefully.

Another thing she could count on: he was just as protective as her father and brother but he did not coddle her. He disliked leaving people in the dark about things without solid reasons, especially if withholding information was likely to backfire and defeat the purpose. It was why he had told her so much about shinigami in the first place. Tōshirō would choose his words carefully to soften the blow and might gloss over the worst details, but he wouldn't leave her grasping around in the dark for monsters.

Karin rolled her eyes. "Whatever would explain your faces." Max disclosure, please.

"You know about Yuzu dying, you turning into a Witch, and you committing suicide," he said. "Isn't that explanation enough?"

"No. That's too vague. There's more to it." Karin gestured with the soda can. "Everyone's looking at me like they're trying to see into my skull. What the hell is that for? Do you all think I'm gonna off myself when your backs are turned?"

Tōshirō pursed his lips and worked his jaw, turning to contemplate the soda can he held loosely on one thigh. "I think... for most of us, it has to do with what we wrote about your... labyrinth." He went quiet; she waited him out. "It seemed to have been... blatantly symbolic. Personally so."

Karin narrowed her eyes. "So you're all trying to see in my skull because your other yous took a stroll through it and you're trying to see it yourselves?"

He grimaced. "That's one way to put it. Except more like... looking for warning signs so we don't see it for real. And also... feeling like we know things we're not supposed to."

"What was so personal about it?"

Her friend rubbed his face, held his hand over his mouth, and stared into the distance with haunted eyes. It must be bad for him to be so affected just by a description of it on paper. "There was... artwork. Of us. And representing us. In a big museum. Photos of... your memories, I suppose. But also of... things that never happened. Maybe things you wanted to happen. Like..." Tōshirō looked at her hesitantly. "Like me and you playing soccer together as really little kids. Both of us in Shin'ō Academy uniforms. And you and Yuzu... in high school uniforms. With... I suppose she was your mother. Older than in that poster in your house, though. Some gray in her hair, I wrote. Ichigo... kinda lost it when he saw that one."

Karin felt the blood drain from her face, then return quickly as a hot blush.

So, like... personal-personal.

His mouth quirked into a brief smirk. "And you grown up and wearing the JFA uniform with a World Cup team."

"Fuck yes," Karin blurted, grasping for the buoy he offered her. Steady. Steady. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. "Tell me."

And so he did. Carefully, gently. Told how her soul had been laid bare before their other selves, how his other self felt he had invaded her privacy. Speculated that they had all written so much of it to themselves despite the intrusiveness in order to force themselves to take everything super seriously and keep from ever having to see it again.

God, pronouns and verb tenses were weird with time travel.

Tōshirō stopped short of telling her about her Witch form, though. She prodded him, but he just gave her that haunted expression and said, "Do you trust me?"

"With my life," she replied immediately.

"With your sanity?" he asked.

"Of course. That's why I asked you to come."

Tōshirō breathed deeply. "Then please trust me when I say you don't want to know."

Karin searched his face for a long time. He maintained eye contact, face open and honest. She recognized the undertones of his expression as in the neighborhood of the times he spoke of his trouble getting over what he had been tricked into doing to his sister in the Winter War. "You didn't mention a room for Yuzu," she prompted with suspicion.

He just stared, eyes and mouth tight with stress.

"Next-level mindfuck regarding Yuzu?" she guessed morbidly.

Her friend swallowed hard and nodded. He opened his mouth, but closed it when he couldn't find words.

"Okay. I trust you." She really, honestly didn't want to know. She knew enough detail.

His relief was nearly comical.

Enough detail, but in general... "Was I at least a badass Witch?"

Tōshirō gave her one of his epic disgruntled looks. "I cannot believe you actually asked me that."

"Was I? I mean, museum sounds kinda boring."

He dragged his hands down his face and looked heavenward for patience. "I guess."

"You guess I was boring?"

"No, you brat. Badass. I guess."

"You guess?"

"Your Witch was big and breathed fire. That's all you're getting out of me."

"Cool."

"You are unbelievable," Tōshirō muttered darkly.

"Who defeated me?" Karin asked.

Tōshirō looked like she had punched him in the gut, his eyes fluttering closed. "Akemi and I- the other me- we... cooperated. The others were... uh, pinned down. Familiars. I- he- restrained you. With ice. Akemi... struck the blow."

Meaning Karin's Witch had probably been blown to bits by a ridiculous amount of artillery.

"Your father and brother- their other selves- were there. They saw. Your father was carrying your body and ended up just sitting and staring and your brother just... he got penned in and just shut down. Neither could fight... your Witch. They... probably wrote about that. I- the other me- wrote about it in enough detail to... yeah." Tōshirō looked ill.

"Oh. Hell." Karin picked the tab off the top of her soda can for lack of anything else to do. "That explains some things."

So every time her best friend saw her, he was forced to contemplate a reality in which he'd have to put her out of her misery because her family couldn't bring themselves to do it. Nice. She felt like an asshole for making him tell her. It did give her context for the looks, though. And... that other Tōshirō had been able to help end her misery when no one else who knew her could. It pained this Tōshirō to just read of it, so that other Tōshirō... well. She didn't know if she'd be capable of the same thing were their positions reversed.

"Thank you. Really," Karin said with deep sincerity. "That's gonna really help me be more patient with... everyone."

"You're welcome," Tōshirō mumbled, miserable.

She stared at him as he refused to look at her. "There's something else, isn't there?"

The tab of his soda can joined hers on the ground. He didn't answer.

After awhile, Karin hesitantly asked, "Do you think I'm gonna off myself or something?"

"Your other self destroyed her Soul Gem literally across a table from Akemi and the other me," Tōshirō blurted in a rush. He immediately slammed a hand over his mouth, too late to catch the words.

Karin's breath caught.

"Said- said- I'm really sorry about this," he rasped through his fingers. "Then... gone. Before I- he could even blink." Tōshirō's eyes slid to look at her sideways. "It... wasn't me there, if you know what- time travel- ugh. But." He looked away into the distance, at the sun descending toward the horizon. "You're not the only one with an imagination," he whispered. "We all have imaginations," he added as an afterthought.

Bile rose in Karin's throat. She was furious at and ashamed of her other self. How could she ever-

"Don't you dare blame yourself," Tōshirō said hotly. "That other you- she was- she was-"

"Broken?" Karin whispered.

He glared at her yet beyond her, eyes shifting as he took in her face and thought hard. "...Brokenhearted. And traumatized. Not- not in her right mind." His arm seemed to spasm and he grabbed her wrist. "It won't happen this time. It won't." His face was intense. Determined. Damn near desperate. Protective.

She had to smile at him. Couldn't resist. "I'm so lucky you're my friend, Tōshirō," she said warmly. Her smile widened when he looked away, face reddening. Karin bumped her ankle against his. "You're right. It won't happen this time."

Tōshirō's only reply was to release her wrist and bump his ankle against hers in return.

They sat and watched the sun set in comfortable silence for a long time. Eventually, Tōshirō's phone beeped. He glanced at it and sighed.

"Gotta go, huh?" Karin asked.

"Yeah." He met her eyes. "You'll be seeing me tomorrow, though. At Urahara's."

Karin perked up. "There's a plan?"

"Yeah. And I'm going to make sure your training starts out right without Urahara being an ass."

D'awww.

"Before I go," Tōshirō said hesitantly; he paused for a long time, uncertain. "Can I... see your Soul Gem?" he asked haltingly, as though requesting something deeply personal. "Just to... check how dark it is, I mean. You don't have to." But it would make me feel better.

She smiled at him, held her left hand up, and made her ring burst into red light and manifest as the egg-shaped crystal. It was dull, a bit dim, but not terribly so. Her friend still looked worried.

"It's been much worse than this before, Tōsh. I'll be fine," she reassured him.

Tōshirō exhaled slowly and kept his eyes on the Soul Gem. "Right. Good." He stood and opened his mouth to speak.

"By the way," Karin interrupted with a rush before she lost her nerve, "I'm sorry for hiding all this shit from you until it blew up in my face. It was a dick move. I shouldn't have let Incubitchface convince me to keep my mouth shut. Hell, I should've asked you about its story before I ever made the contract. I'm really sorry."

He looked... pained and touched, she thought. He smiled slightly. "I'm very familiar with manipulation of trust," he said, referring to what that shithead Aizen had done to his sister. "It sabotaged your faith in the organization I'm a leader of, not me. I forgive you."

Karin hadn't realized how deeply that had bothered her until she released the tension. "Thanks, Tōsh. See you tomorrow."

He waved lazily and took off down the hill, heading for Urahara's place to ditch his gigai. Karin stayed there awhile longer and sorted through the new information.

The picture the puzzle made wasn't a pretty one, but it was solid. She could work with solid.

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A/N: Wanted to show how Karin felt about things and how strongly the notebooks affected the Karakura crew. Hope I pulled it off.

Yes, the title is a soccer pun LOL.